Then comes an epistle from four little Malwa and Patna “tuft-hunters” of Hong Kong, who also like to make Judy Fitzsimmons of themselves. After giving “His Excellency” much that is fulsome and adulatory, they speak of his having opened the “_commerce_” of Japan, “not only to us, but to the world.” What nonsense.
We have no _commercial_ treaty with Japan, but only one “of peace and amity,” and strange that the newspapers will persist in saying so. Mischief may come of it in inducing some Yankee trader to go there with an assorted cargo, who will be very apt to have his labor for his pains.
But for the seriousness of speech that marked the presentation to “His Excellency,” by the governor of Rhode Island, on behalf of its general assembly, of a splendid salver, having on it “in testimony of their appreciation of his services to his country in negotiating a treaty of amity _and commerce_ with Japan,” together with the commodore’s teaching the heathen _the observance of the Sabbath_, that worthy functionary would be deemed waggish.
On the morning of the 11th of September, being the ninth day, of the ninth moon, of the fourth year of the reign of Hien-fung, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry left in the English mail-steamer Ganges for home; the Mississippi and the Macedonian firing the parting salute, and the men in the rigging giving three cheers.
We were to have taken our final leave of the grand, celestial, central, middle, flowery kingdom, on the same day, but it stormed, and we did not leave until the next morning, and few, if any, saw the naked hills of Hong Kong fade in the distance with regret. A few hours before us, the poor Porpoise got under way and left the port—that port to which her sail
This was the last that was seen of her, and she no doubt foundered in the typhoon of the 7th of October, encountered by the Mississippi, which noble old ship struggled and maintained her existence for mortal hours under the force of a hurricane, and received the terrific blows of the infuriated sea more bravely than did the black knight under the pounding of the stalwart friar—if “aught inanimate” can have bravery, all honor to thee, old ship! and with more fervency than blesses the bridge that carries us over, honor to thee, old ship, again!